Toxins Pandemic
Here it is, in black and white, top half of the fold, front page of the daily newspaper: "Silent pandemic among children blamed on toxins". A new study claims that industrial chemicals have impaired brain development of children, diminishing their intelligence quotient, resulting in shorter attention spans and triggering behaviour problems.As a result of their findings, a team from the Harvard School of Public Health, indicating that millions of children may already have been so deleteriously affected, warn there is a dire need for improved regulation of no fewer than 201 chemicals commonly used by industry which relate to these neurotoxic effects on children's health.
"About half of the 201 chemicals that we list are high-volume production chemicals", says lead author Dr. Philippe Grandjean. the list includes aluminum and tin compounds, solvents like acetone and benzen, many organic substances and dozens of pesticides.An array of these chemicals are present in Canada, as elsewhere in the industrialized world, in chemical production, in the environment, in consumer goods, Dr. Grandjean explains. Canada in particular is exposed to the neurotoxin manganese, used as an anti-knock agent in gasoline.
Health Canada has not yet responded to the findings released in the Lancet, nor have they released information indicating how commonly the compounds are used in Canada. Health Canada is, however, promising action on thousands of chemicals introduced into common usage in Canada without adequate toxicity testing. The leading question is how long this will take, and why were these chemicals permitted entry to begin with?
When it comes to children's health, a barometer of the overall health and exposure to harmful substances in the environment and in commonly used items for the entire population, it's difficult to completely comprehend why a federal agency like Health Canada would have been permitted to be so lax as to permit entry and use of these untested substances. Our children have become the canary in the mine.
When municipalities have it within their power to enact laws to deny the use of cosmetic pesticides on municipal properties and to deny the use of these harmful pesticides on private property, and they do not act, their lack of concern and suitable action to protect the health of the community is mind-boggling in its lack of foresight and responsibility.
What more proof does society need? We have growing numbers of children with all manner of neurological symptoms and deadly diseases within our neighbourhoods and no responsible authorities at any level appear to want to disrupt business and manufacturing for the good of the health of the population at large.
Yet we pick up the tab in the diminishing health of children, in the growing costs of treatment, in the tragedy befalling families.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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